PERF-1

Manual

PERF-1 turns the M-VAVE FM-1 into a live-performance machine for hypnotic techno, acid, lofi, house, dubstep, dub and more. It plays from the moment it's switched on: a breathing pad, a deep bass, a generative 303 line and a plucked counter-melody, over drums you sequence. You shape the voices like a small modular, flip patterns on the bar, break it down and build it back up, throw beat repeats, gates, tape stops and DJ air horns over it, mix it, or let the auto-DJ run the set, and record the whole performance into your DAW: the FM-1 is a USB audio and MIDI device.

PERF-1 is deamonSLINKY's fork of HYP-1 by RedtailWorks (GPL-3.0). This manual is for PERF-1 0.14 (development): it is changing quickly, some of it has been tested only in the simulator and the emulator, and it can still crash. Keep a way back to the stock firmware (section 1).

1Install

Try it first: the PERF-1 emulator runs the same code in the browser, with sound, played with the mouse, a touch screen or the keyboard.

Install: open the web installer in Chrome or Edge. Connect the FM-1 with a USB data cable (not charge-only), straight to the computer: no hub, probe or Transporter is needed. Close anything else that uses its MIDI port (a DAW, for instance), allow MIDI with SysEx when the browser asks, and press Install. The button stays grey until the page has loaded the package; the line under it then names the version it will write (PERF-1 0.11...). If that is older than the version you were told about, hard-refresh the page (Ctrl+F5, or Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac) so the browser doesn't hand you a cached copy.

The bar and the line above it say what is happening: verifying, switching to update mode, writing, restarting, done. Don't unplug the cable or close the page while it writes (the page asks before it lets you leave). When it finishes, the FM-1 restarts into PERF-1 and the page checks that it reports the version it was given.

Go back to the stock firmware: "Back to the stock firmware", at the bottom of the same page, writes M-VAVE's own FM-1 V15 back. Download the file it links to (FM-1.fwsc, also on m-vave.com/download), choose it on the page (the page checks the file's SHA-256 and refuses any other), connect the FM-1 and press Install the stock firmware. It works from PERF-1, from its safe mode and from update mode. M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE (Downloads, PC Software), works too.

Update mode: hold OCT- and OCT+ together for 5 seconds while PERF-1 is running. After 2 seconds the screen counts UPDATE MODE IN 3..; let go before the end and it says UPDATE MODE CANCELLED. At 5 seconds the FM-1 goes into update mode (it shows UBOOT), where the installer can write to it. An install that is cut off leaves the FM-1 in update mode until a write finishes: press Install again (replug the cable first if the page says it lost the FM-1).

Safe mode: if PERF-1 crashes or hangs twice in a row while starting, the FM-1 starts in safe mode instead: a black screen, PERF-1 SAFE MODE, no sound, USB on, the address of the crash at the bottom. Reinstall from the web installer, or press PLAY to try PERF-1 again. If even that keeps failing, the FM-1 goes into update mode by itself. A crash while it was running is reported at the next start (RESTARTED AFTER A CRASH and a PC address for two and a half seconds): note the address if you report it.

Recovering an FM-1 that won't start

Be clear about what is and isn't protected.

• Protected: a bad app. The installer checks the package it sends and each packet it writes, and reads the FM-1's version back after the restart. The firmware has safe mode, update mode on four failed starts, the OCT- + OCT+ key combo, and a USB command that enters update mode, and the installer works through all of them.
• Not protected: a damaged start-up sector or boot loader, or the power or the cable going while a write is in progress when no resume record has been written yet. That the interrupted-write protection works has been argued from the design and has not been tested with a real power cut. No hardware way in (pads, a strap, a key chord) has been found for this chip. An FM-1 that fails like that may be gone for good.

If the FM-1 doesn't start but still reaches the chip's own update mode (it appears on USB as 4C4A:8057, UBOOT), tools/fm1_rescue.py in the source (and its wrapper fm1_rescue.sh) can put the stock V15 back from a Mac, using sudo, pyusb and libusb-package. It backs up the whole flash first, writes only the 4 KiB sectors between 0x4000 and 0x93000 that differ from V15, reads everything back, and accepts only the exact V15 file. It was written for crash loops and uses FM-1-transporter's protocol, which was verified on hardware upstream; treat it as a last resort, not a guarantee. Otherwise recovery needs FM-1-transporter or hardware you may not have.

2Getting started

1. Switch it on. The deamonSLINKY card shows (the slinky mascot hops twice and blinks, then the name and PRESENTS), then the PERF-1 card (the version, "by deamonSLINKY", "based on HYP-1 by RedtailWorks") with sixteen steps filling in and the white keys lighting with them. Then a piece in the HYPNO bank starts playing at random. Press any button or key to skip the cards.
2. Turn SELECT to walk through the pages; the four knobs under the screen change what each page shows.
3. Press SEQ for the drums, hold it for the step sequencer, and tap the white keys to change the beat.
4. Tap keys to change the scale: each adds or removes its note. Turn PRESETS for another piece; hold GLO and turn PRESETS for another genre. On a voice's page, hold SEL and turn ALGORITHM for its other sounds.
5. Want to play the bass yourself? Press LFO for its page, then hold SEL and press ENV: it leaves the algorithm and the keys play it. SEL + ENV again gives it back. The JAM page (SELECT dial, after Global) is a keyboard that never edits the scale.
6. Tap SAVE for a breakdown on the next bar; tap it again for a build (four bars; two in trap, lofi and trip-hop; eight in house) and the drop.
7. Press FX: tap a key to latch its effect, hold it to play it.
8. HOME is the Tempo page; HOME again (not too quickly) is the Perform screen; HOME twice quickly is the visualizers; hold HOME for the settings.
9. Like a HYPNO piece? Go to Global (GLO) and press SAVE to store it. (Every genre stores: a piece stored in lofi or house stays there.)

3Controls

Pressing the button of a group again steps through its pages; pressing it from another page goes back to the page you were last on in that group.

Holds and double taps

Holding OCT- and OCT+ while you switch the FM-1 on is a different thing: hardware calibration (section 18).

4The screen

• Top left: the piece's number in a tag (01 for HYPNO, L03, H07, D02, J01, N05, B04, G09, E06, T10 for the other genres; a mark in the tag: changes not yet stored), the root and the mode.
• Top right: the slinky mascot, who hops on the kick, squashes on the snare, jumps on the drop, sleeps in a breakdown and shakes in a build; the tempo (EXT while an outside MIDI clock drives it; a play triangle beside it while stopped); then, working leftwards, what is on:

• Left: the levels of the pad (P), bass (D), acid (A), pluck (C, for counter-melody) and kit (K).
• Middle: the sigil. A summoning circle turned so the chord's root is always at the top: the twelve notes round it (the scale's lit, the chord's bright), the chord's tones joined into a figure (a triad is a triangle, a seventh a four-sided shape, so you learn a chord's kind by its shape; its name is under the eye). It turns by the interval when the chord changes. Outside it, the 4-bar phrase fills round; then the bar's 16 steps (the kick's larger, the acid's gates tinted, the playhead white). A pentagram turns behind once in 16 bars, and runes flare by the notes the pluck plays. In the middle a demon eye: half open in a groove (its slit pupil widens on the kick, its gaze flips on the snare), shut in a breakdown, wide and trembling in a build (the phrase ring opens in spinning gaps), a white flash and a shock ring on the drop. SEL + HOME puts the slinky imp there instead (kept across power-off). When the engine sheds load the pentagram and runes go first. At its top right, the bar filling towards the next chord (or held while frozen).
• Right: the drum pattern playing, in a colour per lane, its number (PAT 1) and, when one is waiting, > 3; under it, the load: CPU 41 XR 0 and below it C2 38 and S1 or S2 when they apply (section 16).
• The line above the knobs: on the left, the sound of the voice on screen (on the drums' pages, the kit), then BY HAND, +LINK or LINKS OFF, and the octave when it isn't home (OCT+2 for the page's voice, SONG-1 for the song); on Global it says what SAVE will do (01 SAVE: STORE, 01 STORED, 01 FACTORY). On the right: the page's name and the page dots, one a page (25 on the SELECT dial): the page you are on bright, the others in its group dimmer. In the FX menu the dots are the four banks; inside an effect's settings, the 22 settings pages.
• Bottom: the four knobs: each value's name, its ring (or pips, for a switch of a few positions) and its value. The one you turned last is lit for a moment.
• Pages that shape a sound draw it: the envelopes and LFOs, the filters' response, the echo and reverb tails, the compressor's curve. The picture follows the knobs as you turn them, with a dot running along it. (It shows the idea, not exact milliseconds.)
• Messages take the header's place for a moment: PATTERN 3 NEXT BAR, STORING, KEY CHANGE +5.

5The pages

SELECT walks through them in this order (31 pages; the dial stops at the ends). The buttons jump straight to a voice, and pressing the same button again steps through that voice's envelope and LFO (and, for the pad, the chords). On a voice's main page KNOB 1 is its level.

Three more screens are off the dial: the Sequencer (hold SEQ; section 8), the Perform screen (HOME again from Tempo; section 10) and the visualizers (HOME twice quickly; section 13). The Perform screen and the visualizers have the FX knobs on their four knobs: Filter, Crush, Throw and Wash (section 9).

The old Noise page is gone: the bed of noise is now the Vinyl effect (section 9). The Mixer page sits between Comp/Limit (the master bus; it was called Master) and Global.

What moves by itself. The chord changes now and then (Drift sets how long it stays; EDIT moves it on). Each genre has its own habits in where it goes next on a seven-note scale: lofi and DnB love the fourth up (the ii-V-I turnaround), house loops by steps and thirds, dubstep and trap stay close to home on the dark side, dub keeps to a minor one-four vamp; HYPNO keeps the original walk. The Loop setting on the Chords page makes the last 2, 4 or 8 chords repeat. The pad's voices breathe on unequal cycles and take the new chord's notes as they breathe in. The bass follows the chord's root and glides. The acid line's notes are tied to the chord, so the riff transposes; Mutate rewrites steps each time round. The pluck plays an arpeggio of the chord's tones. Motion sets how far a slow tide swings between sparse and full, over a minute or two. Evolve makes the acid and the chords more restless.

Tempo. Tempo 70-190. Hold HOME and turn SELECT for the tempo from any page, or tap it in: hold GLO and tap E4 four times or so. Over MIDI, an outside clock drives it and the screen says EXT.

Octaves

OCT- / OCT+ move an octave at a time, three down to three up. On the Pad, Bass or Acid pages (or their env and LFO pages) they move that voice alone; on the Pluck pages they move the pluck, two down to two up; on any other page, Tempo among them, they move the whole song (pad, bass and acid together). The line above the knobs shows it when it isn't home: OCT+2 for the page's voice, SONG-1 for the song. The octaves are stored with the piece. Going down, each voice stops at the bottom of what you can hear (about C1), so -2 and -3 may sound alike.

Chords

The pad's chords come from the scale: each is built on a degree of it, and Drift sets how long one lasts (EDIT moves on now). The Chords page (ENV four times) sets what kind of chord that is:

Voicing: Close keeps the four notes together; Open drops the second from the top an octave, spreading the chord out. Chorus is the pad's ensemble: three delays a side, each swept by a slow triangle, which widens every pad sound without the pulsing a single swept delay makes (0 is off; the genres set 20-50). The page also has Root (the same as on Global). For dub techno, try Chord on Dub with the pad's Dub sound (chord stabs, dark) and the echo up: HYPNO piece 06 is set up that way.

6Pieces, genres and storing

There are sixteen genres, each a bank of ten pieces. Turn PRESETS for another piece in the bank (01-10 wrap round); hold GLO and turn PRESETS for another bank (it wraps too), or use the Genre knob on the settings page. The same piece number keeps playing, in the new genre, and the genre's own effects come with it (the lofi bank latches vinyl and tape on, house latches the pump on, and so on). Switching clears the latched vinyl, tape, pump and phaser first. Each piece has its own settings, its own six drum patterns and its own drum sounds; patterns 1-6 run roughly intro, groove, build, peak, variation and a thinner tool. A piece shows a made-up title when you pick it (VELVET RAIN), the same one every time.

Inside a genre the pieces differ in sound as well as in key and tempo: each genre has a palette of sounds for the pad, bass, acid, pluck and kits, and a piece takes one of each by its number. The pluck's sound, style and rate vary by piece in every genre. Each genre also brings its own compressor settings (section 11).

The six after TRAP (disco, funk, reggae, synthwave, amapiano, trip-hop) use the same drum kits as the others; a kit of their own for the roots genres is planned.

Storing (every genre): go to Global and press SAVE. The piece is stored as it is: every page's values, the scale and mode, its voices' sounds and kit, its patterns and its drums' sounds, in the genre you are in: the stored piece takes the place of that genre's factory piece (piece 3 of lofi stored is piece 3 of lofi from then on; each genre has its own place in memory). The line above the knobs says 01 SAVE: STORE while it has changes, then 01 STORED. Changes you don't store last while you stay in that genre (moving between its pieces keeps them) and are gone when you change genre or switch off (the original genre's come back when you return to it).

Factory: on Global, hold SEL and SAVE together for 1.5 seconds (the screen says KEEP HOLDING: FACTORY; SAVE alone only stores): the piece goes back to how it shipped, and out of the store (the slot goes back to the factory piece).

When it's written: at once. The FM-1 can't make sound while it writes to its memory, so a store made while playing fades the music out (STORING), writes it, and fades back in exactly where it was: a pause of a fraction of a second, the song carrying on in time with itself. MIDI clock out pauses with it. Factory works the same way. Anything else PERF-1 keeps does the same dip (section 13).

Power-on always starts in HYPNO, on a piece at random: as you stored it, or with small random changes to its factory settings if you never did.

7Sounds, kits and playing

Each voice has its sounds, and each drum fourteen, kept with the piece. Change them on the voice's own page (the Sound knob), or from any of its pages with SEL + ALGORITHM (on the pluck pages, that steps through the sounds that exist and wraps). The voice keeps playing what it was playing: its notes, envelope, LFO and filter carry over to the new sound.

The pad: 24 sounds

The bass: 24 sounds

The bass as a line

The bass can play notes instead of one held tone. The Bass line page (LFO four times) turns it into a bass line that follows the chord:

Length is how long a note holds (a quarter step to five steps) before it lets go; Move is how often a note goes up an octave, to the fifth or to the scale note below the root instead (in Walk, how often the last beat steps below); Glide is the slide from note to note (0 plays each note as it is; 100 takes about 0.4 s). Each note opens the bass's filter again, with the Bass env page's attack and decay, so that page still shapes the sound; its Trigger setting does not apply. The sound, cutoff and reso are the Bass page's. A breakdown plays no notes; a build plays none in Kick mode. A bass played by hand from the keys is not a bass line.

New pieces start as a bass line in lofi (Root), house (Off-beat), dubstep and trap (Kick, long, a little glide), electro and synthwave (Eighths), disco, funk, reggae and amapiano (Riff), and trip-hop (Root); the other genres keep the bass. Every note stays between C1 and B5.

The acid: 31 sounds

The pluck: 12 + 30 + up to 16 sounds

The pluck is the counter-melody: two plucked voices taking turns (a tail rings under the next note), playing an arpeggio of the chord's tones. It is quiet by default (Level 30, Density 45; turn Level to 0 for none), plays on the bar's grid with swung off-sixteenths, and thins out in a breakdown. Its two pages are on ARP (the fourth and fifth). Style: up, down, up-down, random, skip (every second tone), thirds. Rate: 1/8, 1/16, 1/4 or dotted 3/16. Range: 1-3 octaves. Decay: how long a note rings; for the DX sounds it sets how long the key stays down (0.12 s to 1.7 s), and a note fades out a while after the key comes up. The MOOD macro moves its level, decay and density.

• Plain (12): Pluck, Marimba, E.Piano, Kalimba, Bell, Vibes, Gong, Clav, Digital, Brass, Bleep (a plain sine), Glass. All FM at their own ratios, apart from Bleep.
• Built-in DX7 voices (22): DX Tine EP, DX Glass Bell, DX Round Bass, DX Brass Sect, DX Soft Pad, DX Wood Bars, DX Drawbars, DX Nylon Pick, DX Brass 2, DX Solid Bass, DX Bells, DX Marimba, DX Clavinet, DX Strings, DX Glass Pad, DX Sync Lead, DX Harp, DX Kalimba, DX Flute, DX Steel Drum, DX Saw Bass, DX Tubular. A six-voice, six-operator FM engine plays them as a DX7 would (all 32 algorithms, the envelopes with their curves and scaling, velocity, LFO, pitch envelope, feedback). Heavy patches are held to fewer voices (the bells, brass, strings and pads to three or four) to spare the processor.
• Yours (up to 16): DX7 voices you load yourself come after these, named DX and the voice's own name (section 15).

The answer (call and response). The Acid answer page (ARP four times) makes the line ask and then answer. Every is how often: the 2nd to the 8th bar (or loop, see Sync: with Every on 4th you hear the call three times and the answer the fourth), or Drift: the bar before the drums change, so the answer comes in with the pattern change (with drum drift not changing patterns it falls back to every 8th). Answer is how the line is changed: Octave, Fifth (seven semitones), Third (two degrees up or down the scale, so it stays in key), Mirror (the contour upside down round the line's own middle, so it stays in the line's register), Reverse (the line backwards), Rotate (the line displaced a beat), Sparse (only the even steps) or Accents (only the accented notes). Direction is down 2, down, the same, up or up 2: for the octave, fifth and third a step of the interval, for the others (mirror, reverse, rotate, sparse, accents) octaves. Where the move would leave the acid's register (a low line answered downwards) the answer goes the other way, so it never folds back onto the call. Sync is what Every counts: Bar (the answer is a bar, so with a line of 12 or 10 steps it begins and ends mid-line) or Loop (the answer is the whole line, counted in times round it, and with Drift it is the loop that starts in the bar before the drums change; use Loop for lines that are not 16 steps). The page draws the call and its answer, a dot a step at its note's height. Off by default; stored with the piece (the editor has it under Acid).

The eight newest built-in DX voices are guitars, a bass and brass: Steel Gtr (a strummed steel string, long ring), Clean Gtr (an electric that holds, a little chorus), Muted Gtr (the funk chank, over in a tenth of a second), Drive Gtr (a feedback chain for a distorted string, held), Slap Bass, Synth Brass (a swell, the bite coming up), Sax (a reed with a delayed vibrato) and Mute Trumpet (the thin, nasal vowel of a mute). They are first drafts, written for PERF-1 and tuned by numbers rather than by ear, and are used in the disco, funk, reggae, synthwave, amapiano and trip-hop genres; tell the maker what you think of them. For more, load your own: the installer page takes any DX7 .syx bank or single voice (section 15), and there are large free collections of them, such as Bobby Blues' DX7 archive, Soundarchive and Yamaha Black Boxes (the licence of each bank is its author's: PERF-1 does not include any).

Acid steps: freeze the line and edit it

The acid line is made up as it goes and rewritten a little each time round (Mutate). To keep a line you like, and to shape it, use the Acid steps page (ARP five times, after Acid answer). It draws the line as sixteen bars, a step each: the height is the note, the accent in the bright colour, a short tail where a step slides into the next, a dash for a rest, and a mark under the step playing. A white key chooses a step; the knobs set it:

Any edit freezes the line (it would otherwise be rewritten); turn Frozen back to Free to let it evolve again. Freeze it without editing by turning Frozen to Frozen on the line you are hearing. The line's length, the answer (section 7) and the Acid octave work on a frozen line as on any other. The steps beyond the Length are drawn dim and do not play. A piece stored in an earlier version has a free line.

Deja vu: loops in the pluck, and what the acid mutates

The pluck normally chooses each note afresh. The Deja vu page (ARP seven times) makes it remember: it keeps the last 4, 8, 16 or 32 notes (Loop), and each time one comes round again, Pluck vu is the chance it is the same note, rest or leap as last time (0: every note is new, 100: the loop is locked and repeats exactly). The chord it is played over is the chord of now, so a locked phrase follows the harmony. Leaps is how often a new note jumps an octave. Changing the loop's length, or a new piece, forgets the loop.

The acid has always had this in its Mutate (Acid line page): each time round it rewrites a few steps. Acid mut on this page chooses what a rewrite changes: All (as before), Notes only (the rhythm stays, the notes drift: the classic acid), Rhythm only (the same notes come and go), or Accents (only the accents and slides).

The kits: 14

Press SEQ three times for the Kit page. Each knob picks one drum's sound: the kick, the snare (and the clap with it), the hats (closed and open) and the perc, each from the same fourteen:

On any of the drums' pages, SEL + ALGORITHM turns all four to the next kit at once. Mix them freely: a Techno kick under House hats is fine.

Playing a voice by hand

The keys set the scale, as ever. To play a voice yourself, take it off the algorithm: go to any of its pages (ENV the pad, LFO the bass, ARP the acid), hold SEL and press ENV. It goes quiet and the line above the knobs says BY HAND. On a page that isn't a voice's, SEL + ENV just says so. Now, while its pages are on screen (Pad, Pad env, Pad LFO or Chords; the bass's three; the acid's three), the keys play it over the rest of the song:

• Pad: up to four notes at once, each on one of its voices, with the Pad env's Attack and Release (quicker than the breaths).
• Bass: the last key held, two octaves down; the envelope opens on each new press.
• Acid: the last key held, an octave down, with its filter and envelope. A second key while one is held slides to it, as a 303 does.

Everything else carries on with the algorithm: the other voices, the chords, the drums. The keys follow the voice's octave and the song's (OCT- / OCT+), and the lit keys still show the scale, so you can see what's in key. It works while stopped too. A key keeps playing until you let go, even if you change page; on any other page (Tempo, Global and so on) the keys still edit the scale. SEL + ENV on its pages again puts it back on the algorithm. Which voices are played by hand is kept with the piece. MIDI out sends what you play, on the voice's channel. The pluck is played on the Jam page instead (section 10).

Links: the drums into the voices

The drum hits can be patched into the voices, like trigger cables on a modular. SEL + SEQ turns the links on and off without losing their amounts (+LINK shows on the line above the knobs while they're on); the Links page (SEQ, then SEQ again) sets each one, 0 being none. They're stored with the piece.

Muting a drum with FX silences it but its hits still drive the links: mute the perc and it's a pure clock for the acid.

8The sequencer

Hold SEQ to open it; tap SEQ to go back to the Drums page.

• Six lanes: kick, snare, clap, closed hat, open hat, perc. Sixteen steps. A lane has its own colour.
• The sixteen white keys are the steps of the drum you're on. They light where it hits, and the light running across them is the playhead. Tap a key to turn its hit on or off.
• OCT- / OCT+ choose the drum (the previous, the next).
• The knobs: the drum's Level, Tune (+-1 octave) and Decay, and the Pattern you're editing (even before it plays; a change waits for the bar).
• With SEL held: white keys 1-6 (F3 G3 A3 B3 C4 D4) choose the pattern to edit, black keys 1-6 copy this pattern into pattern 1-6, OCT- clears this drum's lane, OCT+ puts back the piece's own lane.

Tricks: SEL + a knob (on the lane you're on):

The groove: density and a lane's own pattern. The Groove page (SEQ five times, or the dial after Drum drift) draws every lane as it plays: a bright hit as written, a white one added, a dash one taken out. Density (50 plays the lane exactly as written; the pattern itself is never edited) takes the hits of least importance out first as you turn it down (the off-sixteenths, then the off-eighths, the beats last) and puts hits on the most important empty steps as you turn it up (at 100, half of them). All dens moves every lane at once. Source makes a lane play another pattern's lane from the next bar (take the hats from pattern 4 while the kick stays on pattern 1; on the sequencer, black keys 1-6 set the lane you are on, black 7 sets it back to following the piece; a pinned lane has its pattern's number after its name). Density and source are stored with the piece, and scenes carry them.

Probability and length are stored with the piece. The Euclidean fill and rotation edit the pattern, so they stay in it if you store the piece.

Steps: ratchets, push and level

Under the six patterns each lane has step tricks: a ratchet, a push and a level for each of its sixteen steps, on the Steps page (SEQ six times, or the dial after Groove). KNOB 1 chooses the lane; a white key chooses the step (the key lights, and the page shows the lane as it plays); the other knobs set that step:

The page draws each step as a bar (its height the level, shifted by its push) with the ratchet's hits as small bars under it. The tricks belong to the lane's steps, whatever pattern plays, and are stored with the piece (a piece stored in 0.13 simply has none). They apply to the hits the pattern makes; a trick on a step with no hit waits for one. They do not apply in fills, builds, breakdowns, or to the hits the drop lands on, and the first bar after PLAY plays without them. Some genres ship with tricks: the off-beat hats soft (lofi, house, garage and most of the rest), the hats' off-beat accented (disco, house, electro), the backbeat accented (DnB, breaks, funk, synthwave), the snare laid back (lofi, trip-hop, reggae's rim a touch), trap's triplets and a swell on its last hat beat.

Feel: ghosts, accents, comping and looseness

The Feel page (SEQ seven times) holds what makes a groove human:

• Ghosts (0-100): the genre's ghost notes, soft snares (and soft kicks in lofi, breaks, funk, trip-hop) on steps the pattern does not have. At 100 about six in ten of those steps sound. Lofi, house, DnB, breaks, garage, funk and trip-hop have ghost steps; the others are unchanged.
• Accents (0-100; 50 is as marked): how much the Steps page's accents and ghosts count. 0 plays every level alike; 100 exaggerates them.
• Pad comp: the rhythm of the pad's stabs, for stab-type pad sounds (Stabs, Dub, Pings, Hits, Rave, Wurli, Mallet, Brass, Pluck). Auto takes the genre's own; Hold never stabs (a stab sound plays as a held pad); the others force the stabs on any pad sound: Off-beat, On-beat, 3-3-2, Charleston, Syncopated, Sparse, Eighths.
• Humanize (0-100): a little looseness, each hit a touch softer and a touch late.

Phrase: chains, slices, half and double time, conditions

The Phrase page (SEQ eight times) shapes what the patterns do over several bars:

• Chain plays a different pattern each bar, round and round: 12 (patterns 1, 2), 1112, 1123, 1134 (the Amen's), 1213, 1234, 1232, 1115, or 123456. While a chain is on, it chooses the pattern at every bar line (the Pattern knob, held pattern keys and drum drift's changes give way to it; drift's fills still come); off, the patterns are yours again. Turning it on or changing it starts it from its first bar.
• Slice reads the drum steps in another order (the drums only; a lane with its own length keeps its steps): Halves (the two halves of the bar swapped), Stutter (the first beat of each half repeated), Reverse (the bar backwards), Delay (the back half an eighth late), Beats (the middle two beats swapped), Mirror (the second half backwards), Double (the first half twice), Swap (the beats within each half swapped). Auto gives the last bar of every four a different one, drawn at random.
• Time reads the pattern at half speed (Half: over two bars, the hats in eighths: DnB into drumstep) or twice (Double: twice in a bar; a hit on an odd step joins the step before).
• Cond is the condition of the lane chosen (on Groove, Steps or the sequencer; the knob shows its first letters): Always, 1:2 (odd bars: the first, third ...), 2:2 (even bars), 1:4 (the first bar of four), 4:4 (the last of four), 1:8 (the first of eight), Fill (the lane's pattern hits sound only in fill bars) or No fill. A condition decides whether the pattern's hit sounds; fills still add theirs.

Everything on this page is stored with the piece (the chain and the slice as numbers; the conditions one a lane).

9Effects

Press FX to open the menu; press it again to close it. While it's open, every key is an effect. The SELECT dial walks four banks of keys: FX, BEAT FX, FLEX BEAT and DJ SNIPS (it stops at the ends). The knobs are the FX knobs.

Tap latches, hold plays. Tap a key (let go within a quarter of a second) and its effect latches on; hold it and it plays only while it's down. Tap a latched key to turn it off. Several can be latched together. A key is found by its colour as well as its name: repeats cyan, filters green, gates and the pump yellow, the drums' mutes red, the colour effects pink, builds violet, the transport moves (reverse, stops, scatter) orange, Flex Beat teal. A held key is a lit tile in its colour; a latched one has a bar beside it.

Locks outlast the menu: close FX and the latched effects keep playing (the FX button blinks and FX shows by the tempo), so the keys are free for the scale or a voice again. To turn one off, open FX and tap its key. OCT- in the menu turns everything off (effects, FX knobs, mutes and solos; GLO + B3 undoes it). SAVE tapped in the menu is still the breakdown.

The FX knobs (in the menu, and on the Perform screen and visualizers, where the menu isn't needed):

They aren't stored (they go home at power-off); a scene stores them. The header says KNOB while one is off home.

Bank 1: FX

The 27 keys run F3 to G5; on the screen they fall down three columns of nine.

The drums' mutes here are momentary like any held key; the other tracks' mutes and every solo are on the GLO layer (section 10).

Bank 2: BEAT FX

Beat repeat and reverse play back the last moment of the mix (just under a second); a 1/2 repeat that doesn't fit at slower tempos plays as a 1/4.

Bank 3: FLEX BEAT

Twenty-seven one-bar patterns, one on every key, F3 to G5, that rework the last stretch of the music on the grid: Bt Rept (the last beat looped), Hf Rept (the last half bar), Bt Rev (the beat backwards), Skip, Trance (a 3-3-2 gate), Gate 8, Double, Shuffle, Bck-Fwd, Roll out, Build (live, then a stutter that speeds up), Scratch, Dropout; Jump bk (the last beat again, then on), Halves (the two halves of the last half bar swapped), Swap (sixteenths swapped in pairs), Mirror (forwards, then backwards), Lag (late, with a hole), Slowmo (every sixteenth twice: half time without the pitch drop), Skip 3 (three against four), Stut up and Stut dn (a stutter that speeds up, or slows down), Tresillo (3-3-2 on the last sixteenth), Offbeat (the off-beats only), Cut 4 (a hole every fourth step), Rev 8 (the half bar backwards, twice), Half gap (the half bar once, then silence). The stutters that were here (Stut 16, Stut 32) are the beat page's repeats. Tap latches, hold plays. The settings page (below) has Quant (off, beat, bar: when it starts; bar is the default), Mode (one shot: the bar plays out, then a latched pad lets go; or loop: until the pad is let go or tapped off) and Mix (dry to wet). A pad held down by hand repeats its bar, and on release the current bar plays out, so it always ends on the bar line. The ring is frozen while it plays, so the slices are the last 8 sixteenths (fewer at slow tempos).

Bank 4: DJ SNIPS

The 27 keys, F3 to G5, are sounds a DJ throws in, made on the spot: AIR HORN (held), AIR BLAST (a short blast), HORN MIN (a minor chord, held), RAVE HORN (the hoover, held), SIREN, SIREN 2, SIREN 3, LASER, LASER LO, ZAP, ZAP HI, BEEP, BEEP LO, BEEP HI, 2 BEEP, WHOOP, WHOOP 2, DUB SIREN, DUB LOW, DROP, DROP LONG, RISER, REWIND, CRASH, RAVE STAB (the hoover as a stab), BELL and SNR ROLL (a snare roll that speeds up). Up to four at once. They play while held (they aren't latched). The snips page sets Pitch (normal, an octave up or down), Play (HELD: the horns, sirens, dub siren, riser and roll sound as long as the key is down; ONE SHOT: they sound for a second or so and every other one plays out), Echo (dry, some, lots: how much goes to the echo and the reverb) and Level.

Settings pages

Every effect with settings has a page that draws it. Reach a page by: SEL + a key in the FX menu (the effect that key plays; an effect with no settings says so), FX twice quickly (the effect you used last), SEL + FX (walks all 22, then back to the keys; Talk and Wah come right after the phaser and flanger), or the SELECT dial once you are in one (no wrap). FX closes. The effect is on while its page is up, so you hear what you edit (the roll, riser, scatter, brake, half time, scratch, freeze and reverse swell need a key held to be heard). The dots at the right of the knob strip show where you are among the 22.

The Gate page's white keys are the pattern's steps (lit where it opens; the step playing is marked); editing a step makes the pattern "custom". A pattern of 12 or 10 steps against the bar of 16 is a polymeter. Gate 16 and Gate 8 share this page. The settings, the gate's pattern and targets are kept across power-off (section 13).

10Performing

• Breakdown: tap SAVE. The bar before it the percussion, the open hat and half the hats drop out, so it comes as a release; then the drums stop on the next bar (house, techno, dubstep and dub keep the kick; drum and bass keeps the hats), the mix darkens, the bass closes and the pad rises, for as long as you leave it.
• Build: tap SAVE again. A snare roll climbing in pitch with the bass opening (four bars; two in trap, lofi and trip-hop; eight in house), the last bar with the open hat on every eighth and, in the four-on-the-floor genres, the kick back; then the drop.
• Drop: hold SAVE. Straight back in on the next bar. SAVE lights during a breakdown or build and blinks while one waits for the bar.
• Freeze: REC. The chord holds and the reverb rings on; press again to let it move.
• Next chord: EDIT. Moves on at the next bar.
• The scale: the keys. Each adds or removes its note; the root stays. ALGORITHM picks a mode.
• Patterns. Drums page, knob d, or SEL + white keys 1-6. A change waits for the bar, so turning past patterns plays none of them.
• Drum drift: the patterns change by themselves (SEQ four times). Change moves on to the next pattern, or a random one from 1 to the Pool, Every so many bars, or with each chord change. The bar before a change ends in a fill, the snare and hats rolling in. Mutate rewrites a little at the same moments: Shift moves a hit or two a step, Morph also adds or takes one. The kick and clap stay as written, and a snare on a beat never moves, so the floor and the backbeat hold, and what changes stays in the pattern (store the piece to keep it). Mutate works with Change off too, wearing one pattern in slowly. Off by default. The four settings are yours: they stay when you change piece or genre.

There's no song saving: record the audio (or MIDI out) into your DAW and keep the takes you like.

The Perform screen

Press HOME on the Tempo page (or HOME on any page, then again). It shows the section (GROOVE, BREAK, BUILD) and the auto-DJ's place in it, the bar's sixteen steps, the eight tracks (kick, hats, snare, perc, bass, acid, pad, pluck: level, muted with a line through it, soloed filled), the four scenes, which effects are on, and the mood. Its keys are the track mix (the GLO layer, below), its knobs the FX knobs, and ALGORITHM is the mood.

The mix map (GLO held)

Hold GLO (or just press the keys on the Perform screen or a visualizer, with FX closed) and the screen maps the keys; the load meter is at its top right. A mute is latched; the black key above a track solos it.

• Scenes: a scene is which effects are latched, the mutes and solos, where the FX knobs are, and the groove (each lane's density and source pattern, and the pattern playing: from the next bar). Tap a scene key to recall it (on the next bar while playing, if Perform's Scenes is on NEXT BAR, the default; else at once; the FX knobs glide to their values over about a second); hold it for 0.6 s to store the state as it is now. Scenes are kept until power-off.
• Undo (B3): puts back the state before the last big change (a scene, reset, all drums muted, a clear), and again, redoes it.
• Reset all (E5): no effects latched, no mutes or solos, the FX knobs home. Undoable.
• Tap tempo (E4): tap it four times or so; the tempo is the average.

The auto-DJ

GLO + F5 starts it (DJ in the header; the Perform screen counts bars through the phase). It runs the sections by itself, on the bar clock:

1. a groove (8, 16, 32 or 64 bars; 16 by default);
2. a drum fill as the groove's last bar (if Fill is on);
3. a breakdown: short (4 bars), half the groove (4 bars at least, the default), or full (as long as the groove);
4. a build (the genre's length), the riser rising, a breath of silence on the last two sixteenths, then the drop: the breakdown's swell and the build's dip are gone at once, with the kick, a clap and the open hat (a crash that rings) on the one, and mostly the tonic chord;
5. the groove again.

The settings (Groove, Break, Fill and Scenes) are on the Perform settings page. Sync is the fifth Groove setting: the groove lasts until the chord changes (the Drift time on the Tempo page then sets the length of the groove), the bar before a change is a fill, and the change's bar is the breakdown. With DJ new pieces on (GLO + G5), the next piece in the bank comes in on the fill's bar, so the breakdown and the drop belong to it. SAVE pressed by hand just moves the DJ on from there. If the drop's key change is on (section 13), it applies on each drop.

Mood

On the Perform screen and the visualizers, ALGORITHM is a macro: 0 chill, 50 (the middle, the default) leaves the piece as it is, 100 peak. It moves each of these by its share of the distance from 50: acid density and cutoff, the hats' and perc's levels, the pad's brightness, the pluck's density, level and decay (shorter at peak), the bass's cutoff, drive, reverb and echo (less at peak), Evolve and the drums' level. It moves what the engine plays, not what is stored, and it stays where you left it when you change piece. It isn't remembered at power-off.

Jam

The Jam page (SELECT dial, after Global) turns the 27 keys into an instrument to play along with the music; the keys never edit the scale there. Voice: the pluck, the pad, the acid or the bass (the one you pick stops playing its own line while the page is up, and gets it back when you leave). Keys: Scale (every key a note of the scale: a black key plays the scale tone at or below it, so there are no wrong notes), Chords (every key a triad of the scale) or Harp (the keys are the scale's tones, one a key, from C3). Octave: -2 to +2. Answer: after you stop (at least two notes, then a while of quiet), the pluck plays your phrase back an octave up at the next bar line, once, and waits for the next. The page draws the keyboard, the scale lit and the held keys bright. If the pluck's level is nearly off, playing it raises it to 40 so it can be heard.

11Mixing: the mixer, space and the master bus

Mixer (SELECT dial, between Comp/Limit and Global) works on one layer at a time. KNOB 1 chooses the layer (pad, bass, acid, pluck, drums), KNOB 2 its level (the same level as on the layer's own page), KNOB 3 its pan (L100 to R100; it's a balance, the middle leaves the sound as it was), KNOB 4 its send: how much of it goes to the echo and the reverb (50 is as it was, 0 none, 100 twice). The page draws a strip a layer: the level it's set to (the fader, with its number), the level that sounds (the meter beside it), an M when the track is muted, its name in the accent when soloed, the output's peak last. The chosen layer is framed and its pan ticked under it. Everything is stored with the piece.

Space and Reverb are the two sends. The echo is tempo-synced (1/8, 3/16, 1/4, dotted 1/4, 1/2, 1 bar); Echo is how much it repeats, Reverb how much goes to the tank, Size how long the tail is.

The Reverb page chooses the tank:

Damping is the tank's loss of highs (0-100, 47 by default). Predelay is 6-30 ms (30 by default). Genres set their own damping and predelay (lofi and dubstep darker, house brighter and shorter), and dnb and trap use the shimmer, breaks and electro the gated. The page draws the tail for its type.

The master bus

After the effects and before the MASTER volume the mix passes a stereo-linked compressor and a look-ahead brick-wall limiter; a soft clip after the volume stays as the last safety.

The compressor has a 4 ms attack and a release that follows the programme (about 60 ms, up to 400 ms at 9 dB of reduction). The limiter delays the audio by about 1.4 ms so the gain is in place when a peak arrives, and lets go over about 60 ms. The page draws the compressor's transfer curve (in across, out up; the dotted line is unity, the vertical tick the threshold, the horizontal one the ceiling) and live meters: COMP (the compressor's reduction), LIMIT and OUT (the output's peak). The four settings are stored with the piece. The defaults are a light 1.5:1 at -12 dB with +1.2 dB of make-up; each genre brings its own (lofi and garage 2:1, house, dnb and electro 3:1, breaks, dubstep and trap 4:1 with more make-up), and the limiter's ceiling is 0 dB everywhere, so it only catches overs.

12Shift

Hold SEL and:

Keys pressed while SEL is held are never notes or effects. Hold SEL for a moment alone and a card lists them for the page you're on.

13Settings, visualizers and what is remembered

Hold HOME (0.7 s, without turning anything) for the settings page. SELECT walks on to the other effect pages; FX leaves.

Visualizers

Press HOME twice quickly (from anywhere); HOME again leaves, to the Perform screen. The SELECT dial chooses; the choice is remembered. The knobs stay the FX knobs, ALGORITHM the mood, the keys the track mix (as on Perform), and FX opens its menu over them. They are drawn 15 times a second from what the engine already reports (the kicks and snares, the layers' levels, the chord, the pattern, the section), in the theme's colours.

What is remembered across power-off

"A couple of seconds" is 2 s with the music stopped and 4 s while it plays; while it plays, the music dips for a moment for the write, as for a store (a flash write stops the chip, so it fades out, writes and fades back in).

Not kept: the genre (it always starts in HYPNO), anything latched in FX, the FX knobs, the mood, mutes and solos, scenes, the auto-DJ being on, edits to a piece you haven't stored, A genre sets its own tape, vinyl and pump settings when you switch to it; the settings you saved while in HYPNO come back when you return.

Backing up and restoring

Switching to another firmware, or reinstalling, can lose what PERF-1 has stored. The installer page's Back up and restore card (below the DX7 voices) keeps it:

• Save a backup reads everything the FM-1 has stored (the pieces you saved in every genre, the settings, the DX7 voices, the theme, Tune and MIDI out) and saves it as a .p1bak file. Do it before you install anything else. Unsaved changes to a piece are not in it (store them first, section 6), and neither is the panel's calibration, which is the unit's own.
• Restore the chosen backup (choose the file first) writes everything in it back, one store at a time, then the FM-1 restarts. It replaces what is stored now. The music fades out for each write; nothing else is stored until the restart. A file from an older PERF-1 loads in a newer one; a store the firmware does not recognise is refused, never written.
• Only PERF-1 reads these files, and the firmware that is on the FM-1 must be PERF-1 0.14 or later to take part (an older one does not answer, and the page says so).

14Themes and MIDI

Global (GLO): Root, Theme (Imp, Synth, Acid, Ice, Ember, Phosphor), Tune (+-50 cents) and MIDI out.

The look is Imp in every theme; the themes are its colour variations. Warm black, one colour per voice everywhere (in Imp: the pad bone, the bass crimson, the acid lime, the pluck ice-teal, the drums pink; ember is for "now"). The header has a beat bar along its top (the beats taller, the step playing lit) and a coil under it, the slinky's spring, that stretches on the kick; a piece waiting for the bar shows as >08 beside the key and mode. The knob strip has tabs (a chip a group of pages: the one you are in opens to its name and a pip a page) and shows the knobs' values large with a bar under them; hold SEL and the tabs give way to a one-line hint of what shift does on this page. The theme, Tune and MIDI out are yours across all pieces.

MIDI out (USB): the pad's notes on channel 1, the bass on 3, the acid on 4, the drums on 10 (General MIDI notes), and MIDI clock with start, continue and stop. The pluck and the DJ snips are not sent. Notes you play by hand go on their voice's channel. MIDI out can be switched off on Global.

MIDI in: channel 1 notes add or remove their note from the scale; clock and start / stop drive the tempo (EXT shows in place of the tempo). It is read from the USB MIDI port, and from the TRS MIDI input where the build has it.

USB audio: the FM-1 also shows up as a stereo USB audio input (16-bit, 44.1 kHz): the master output, so a computer can record it over the same cable.

15Your own DX7 voices

PERF-1 can hold 16 of your own DX7 voices, kept in flash, and plays them from the pluck. They come after the 22 built-in DX sounds on the Pluck page (the Sound knob, or SEL + ALGORITHM on a pluck page), named DX and the voice's own name (ten characters).

From the installer page: open the installer and find Load DX7 voices. Choose one or more .syx files (a 32-voice bank, single voices, or a bare 4096-byte bank) and the voices in them are listed. Tick up to 16 and press Send the chosen voices: the page clears what is loaded and sends them in order. Clear the loaded voices empties the slots. The FM-1 must be running PERF-1 and connected (Chrome or Edge, MIDI with SysEx allowed, nothing else holding the MIDI port); the page says The FM-1 did not answer (an older firmware?) if it hears nothing back.

From any MIDI librarian: send a DX7 SysEx dump to the FM-1's USB MIDI port. A 32-voice bank dump replaces the loaded voices with its first 16; a single-voice dump adds the voice after the last one loaded (when all 16 are full, it replaces the last). Both are checked against the DX7's checksum. The header says what happened: DX7 VOICES 16 LOADED, 1 ADDED, CLEARED, BAD CHECKSUM, NOT TAKEN. (The page uses its own message too, F0 7D 50 56, slot, 128 bytes, checksum, F7; 7F alone clears; it answers F0 7D 50 57 so a sender can wait for each voice.)

Good to know:

• They are written to flash a couple of seconds after the last change (the music dips, as for any save) and are still there at power-off.
• A voice plays as it was made: the algorithm, envelopes and their scaling, velocity, LFO, pitch envelope and feedback. There is no pitch bend, mod wheel, portamento or mono mode yet. The voice itself can be edited on the editor page (below).
• Loaded voices are not level-matched to each other or to the other sounds, and play up to four notes at once. If one is too loud or quiet, turn the pluck's Level.
• A piece stores the pluck's sound by number: if it uses your voice in slot 3 and you load other voices, it plays what is in slot 3 now. The factory pieces never use your slots.
• The Sound knob can also land on an empty slot ((empty)), which is not a sound; SEL + ALGORITHM only steps through sounds that exist.

Editing them: the editor page

The editor (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 on USB, MIDI with SysEx allowed, nothing else holding the FM-1's MIDI port) has two tabs.

Sound has every parameter on the pages the FM-1 itself has (Tempo, Pad, Pad env, Pad LFO, Chords, Bass, Bass env, Bass LFO, Acid, Acid env, Acid line, Pluck, Pluck 2, Drums, Links, Kit, Drum drift, Space, Reverb, Comp/Limit, Mixer, Global), with the same labels, ranges and value names, and a last page for the rest: each drum lane's level, tune, decay, probability and length, each layer's pan and send, the noise, the octaves and the by-hand switches. Moving a control changes the piece that is playing, as the knob would; to keep it, store the piece on the FM-1 itself (GLO page, SAVE). The page reads the FM-1's values when it connects (and again with Read everything from the FM-1), so what you see is what it holds. The ↺ button puts a parameter back to its default.

DX7 voices edits the 16 slots. Read the slots from the FM-1, pick one, and edit: the voice's name, the algorithm (all 32, drawn, with the carriers marked and a curl for feedback; click an operator in the drawing to edit it), feedback, oscillator sync, transpose, the pitch envelope and the LFO, and for each of the six operators its output level, ratio or fixed frequency (coarse, fine, detune), the four-stage envelope (with its graph), level scaling (break point, left and right depth and curve), rate scaling, amplitude-modulation and velocity sensitivity. With Live on, every change is sent to the slot as you make it, so the pluck plays what you are editing: Choose it on the pluck makes the pluck use that slot. Slots fill in order (send to the next free one to add a voice); Init voice starts from a plain sine. Choose files loads .syx banks and single voices into a list to take voices from (click one to edit it); Save the slots as a bank and Save this voice write .syx files for a librarian or for later. The FM-1 keeps the slots in flash a couple of seconds after the last change.

16Load, telemetry and the logger

The load. On the home pages, under the drum pattern: CPU 41 XR 0, and below it C2 38, S1. Hold GLO and the same line is at the top right of the mix map, with the auto-DJ's phase beneath it.

The engine steps up a level when a half is lost (an xrun) or when renders keep running past their half (six in ten seconds); one step at a time, and it steps back one level after twenty seconds of neither. When S1 or S2 is on, the sound is a little thinner, not broken. The heaviest combinations are the DX plucks with the shimmer reverb, and the fast genres (dnb, breaks).

The audio is rendered 512 frames at a time, as two renders of 256 (11.6 ms for the pair), so a slow render borrows time from a quick one beside it. The price is a few milliseconds of latency from a key to the sound (the DX plucks, rendered a chunk ahead on the second core, sound 5.8 ms later than the plain ones).

Live status, in the browser. The installer page has a Live status panel: Start asks the FM-1 for its numbers four times a second and shows the CPU, the second core, xruns, the longest render against its budget, what is shed or moved to another core, the genre and piece, the flash writes and the frames drawn. Save CSV writes them to a file: attach it to a bug report.

The logger. With the FM-1 on USB, python tools/fm1log.py (needs pip install mido python-rtmidi; --list shows the MIDI ports, --port and --out choose a port and a file) asks the unit for a status frame four times a second and writes telemetry/fm1_<time>.csv: CPU and CPU1 %, xruns, the longest render since the last frame against its budget, the longest gap between main-loop turns and the longest screen frame (a flash write or a long frame shows there), the shed level, flash writes (and how long the last one stopped the chip), crashes, the genre and piece, and the first core's time by stage. Events are marked in the file (XRUN, LATE, FLASH, OVER, GAP, SHED). The unit sends nothing until it is asked, and stops ten seconds after the last ask; a frame is dropped rather than waited for, so it can't hold the music up. python tools/fm1sum.py telemetry/<file>.csv prints the load, xruns and stage times per genre and piece. fm1log.py --bench times loops on the chip once (the interrupts are off for a few milliseconds: one glitch in the music) and is for development.

17The emulator

The emulator runs the firmware itself in the browser. Drag a knob up or down, or scroll over it. Click buttons and keys; Shift-click (or right-click) a button to hold it down, click again to let go: that's how to hold SEQ, SAVE, SEL or HOME. New start powers it off and on (stored pieces stay, in that browser); Forget stored clears them.

Playing it from the FM-1 (remote)

Plug the FM-1 in by USB, open the emulator in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, switch it on and press Connect MIDI (allow MIDI when the browser asks). Then, on the FM-1, hold SEL and press GLO: the screen says REMOTE, the FM-1 stops and goes quiet, and its whole panel plays the emulator: every button, key and knob, MASTER too. The emulator's lights come back to the FM-1's buttons and keys, so the panel reads as it always does; the emulator's screen is the one to watch. The FM-1 shows PLAYING THE BROWSER while the emulator answers and WAITING FOR THE BROWSER when it doesn't. SEL + GLO again gives the FM-1 back, stopped (PLAY starts it).

For livestreams: the emulator's Stream view button (or the address with ?stream) puts the FM-1 and its screen, large, on a clean 16:9 stage for OBS or any capture. Whatever is pressed glows, on the real FM-1 through the remote or clicked here; a knob turning gets a ring; a strip under the screen names the last moves; FM-1 LINKED shows while the remote is on. Its small bar (Connect MIDI, Exit) and the pointer hide when the mouse rests.

How it talks, for the curious: USB MIDI channel 16. Keys are notes 48-74, buttons CC 102-115 (127 down, 0 up), the knobs CC 85-91 (64 +- the detents), MASTER CC 7, and CC 116 is a hello each second. The emulator sends its lights back the same way, with CC 117 each second.

Any other controller (MIDI learn)

With M-VAVE's own firmware on the FM-1, or any MIDI keyboard or controller, the keys play the emulator's keys as soon as it's connected (by pitch, F3 to G5; notes outside fold into that range). For everything else, press MIDI learn, click a control on the emulator (it's outlined), then press or move the one you want on your controller. Learn as many as you like and press Done learning. Buttons and keys take a note or a CC; knobs take a CC, absolute (a knob or fader) or relative (an endless encoder: pick which in the list). The list is kept in that browser; Forget learned clears it.

18Troubleshooting

• No sound: check MASTER, and that PLAY is lit. A piece's layer levels can be at 0: each voice's page has its level on KNOB 1 (and the Mixer shows them all). A voice marked BY HAND is silent until you play it (SEL + ENV puts it back); a track muted on the mix map (GLO held) or an effect latched in FX can silence things (the header shows FX); the voice you play on the Jam page stops its own line while that page is up; REMOTE silences the FM-1 on purpose.
• A short dip or a tick when you change a setting or store a piece: expected. A flash write stops the chip, so the music fades out, writes and fades back in. Settings are written a couple of seconds after your last change, so a burst of edits is one dip.
• A stored piece came back as it was before: it was stored while playing and the power went off before the write finished. Stores are written at once, with a short dip in the sound: do not switch off during it.
• My changes vanished: only a piece you stored (Global, SAVE) is kept; changes you did not store are gone when you change genre or switch off. See "What is remembered" (section 13).
• The installer doesn't find the FM-1: use Chrome or Edge, a USB data cable (not charge-only), and close any DAW holding its MIDI port. Allow MIDI with SysEx for the page.
• The installer offers an old version: hard-refresh the page (Ctrl+F5, or Cmd+Shift+R).
• An install was cut off: run it again; the FM-1 stays in update mode until a write finishes. If it doesn't come back at all, see "Recovering an FM-1 that won't start" in section 1.
• A screen with PERF-1 SAFE MODE: it crashed twice while starting. Reinstall from the installer, or press PLAY to try again.
• UPDATE MODE IN 3.. appeared: you were holding OCT- and OCT+. Let go before the countdown ends to cancel.
• The buttons or knobs don't match their labels: hold OCT- and OCT+ while you switch the FM-1 on for hardware calibration, a Felucca feature: it asks you to press each button and turn each knob in turn and keeps the result. It gives up after 30 seconds without a touch and changes nothing.
• The DX7 voices I loaded don't show up: use the pluck's Sound knob or SEL + ALGORITHM on a Pluck page: they come after the 22 built-in DX sounds. Check the page said they were sent (and the header DX7 VOICES n LOADED), that the pluck's Level isn't 0, and that the FM-1 runs PERF-1 0.11 or later. A bank must pass the DX7 checksum.
• Crackles or dropouts: look at the load (section 16). Xruns (XR) tick up on a click; S1 / S2 mean the engine is already shedding. Heavy DX plucks, a shimmer reverb and the fast genres push it. Run the Live status or fm1log.py for a minute and send the CSV with the piece, its sounds and the tempo to deamonSLINKY.
• The emulator doesn't see the FM-1: close any DAW holding its MIDI port, and use Chrome, Edge or Firefox (Safari has no Web MIDI). The FM-1 must be in remote (SEL + GLO) for its panel to play the emulator.
• MIDI notes change my scale: MIDI in on channel 1 adds and removes notes from the scale. Use another channel or disconnect the input.

19Credits

Feedback and contributing. Comments, ideas and bug reports are welcome, and anyone is invited to help: open an issue on GitHub (the source is at <https://github.com/deamonSLINKY/PERF-1>). A bug report is most useful with the version (the boot card), the genre and piece, and, for anything about load or crackles, a status log (section 16).

PERF-1 is by deamonSLINKY: the firmware, the slinky mascot and the pages around them. It is a fork of HYP-1, a RedtailWorks project, itself a fork of AMB-1 by Charles Vestal. The platform (USB, update loader, storage, installer) is Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments, which reaches PERF-1 by way of X0X and FoMni (the panel calibration is Felucca's; the boot guard, knob acceleration, help cards and anti-aliased drawing came from X0X).

The six-operator FM that plays the DX7 voices, the factory voices, the second-core work (the reverb, the pad and the DX voices on the FM-1's other processor core) and the safe core hold are from Melodee by Kerem Kilic (Ellic Studio, GPL-3.0). The FM itself is after Dexed by Pascal Gauthier, on MSFA by Raph Levien (Google; Apache 2.0 / GPL-3.0). The idea of running FM-1 firmware in the browser comes from Groove OS's emulator. What is known about the FM-1's hardware comes largely from the FM-1-RE reverse-engineering work; the rescue route uses FM-1-transporter's protocol and JieLi's flash loader from kagaimiq's jl-uboot-tool.

The bass modes, the pad's comping rhythms, the ghost notes and accents of the genres, and the deja vu loop in the pluck follow ideas in Tuna by delirioux (github.com/delirioux/tuna, GPL-3.0), a generative firmware for the FM-1 on Felucca, whose random section is a port of Marbles by Emilie Gillet (Mutable Instruments, MIT); PERF-1's versions are written for its own engine.

Screen and page fonts: Chakra Petch and Barlow Semi Condensed (SIL OFL 1.1). Licence: GPL-3.0, no warranty.

M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners; PERF-1 is not affiliated with M-VAVE.

Runners: hold shift and edit the beat.